PENCZ, Georg
(b. ca. 1500, Nürnberg, d. 1550, Nürnberg)

Portrait of a Seated Youth

1544
Oil on wood, 91 x 70 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Pencz was above all a portrait painter, although he is remembered mostly for the tiny engravings which still place him among the ranks of the so-called German 'small masters'. In this work Pencz presents a vigorous image of a young man, painting full of of plastic force and psychological tension, and one that reveals the importance which portrait-painting had in that period of German art which we could call late Renaissance.